It occurred to me that the problems presented by dealing with current prisoners in Guantanamo and Afghanistan might be solved by turning them over to the jurisdiction of the World Court.  In so doing, a pathway may be cleared towards the United States accepting the World Court—a very practical and sensible thing to do, in my opinion.  In this way an opportunity could be created to help our country re-engage with those who are pursuing strengthening a rule of law internationally to which all world leaders would be subject.

me:
’... On top of that, the case is weak, or we wouldn’t be given evidence like “the planes and crews and passengers disappeared” (they didn’t) or “the building couldn’t fall down that fast” (it could, or at least no one has shown that it couldn’t). ...’

cyrena:
‘The case may indeed be ‘weak’ but not because of what you claim is ‘evidence’ that we’ve been given.
For instance, ‘the planes, crews, and passengers disappeared.” You say they didn’t, but try telling that to the people they left behind. For all intents and purposes, they DID fucking disappear…the airplanes, the passengers, the crews, and the cargo. They aren’t here, and the government hasn’t offered so much as a broken wing light to prove that these aircraft, people, and cargo were involved in the events of 9/11. They haven’t been seen or heard from since, (dead or alive) so for all intents and purposes, they DISAPPEARED. That’s hardly ‘evidence’ but a lack of it….’

This is the kind of thing that bugs me about this sort of discussion—where you try to argue with True Believers. 

If you had investigated the destruction of the World Trace Center at all you would know that for days and weeks and years rescue workers and investigators were pulling body parts and bits of clothing out of the wreckage and the surrounding area, body parts which were sometimes identifiable through DNA testing.  The people did not physically disappear; they were transformed into something like hamburger or puree, with an occasional finger or toe or tooth escaping “intact”, so to speak.  That’s what happens when you hit something solid going five hundred miles per hour, or are hit by it, along with several thousand gallons of burning kerosene, and then fall several hundred feet, and then have a large building fall on you from the same distance.  A few of those body parts were found and identified, as I’ve said.  Others were smelled for several weeks.

I really find it difficult to deal with this kind of “thinking” without losing my temper.  If you all are so interested in this event, why don’t you research it?

•  “On top of that, the case is weak, or we wouldn’t be given evidence like “the planes and crews and passengers disappeared” (they didn’t) or “the building couldn’t fall down that fast” (it could, or at least no one has shown that it couldn’t). “
Anarcissie,

The case may indeed be ‘weak’ but not because of what you claim is ‘evidence’ that we’ve been given.
For instance, ‘the planes, crews, and passengers disappeared.” You say they didn’t, but try telling that to the people they left behind. For all intents and purposes, they DID fucking disappear…the airplanes, the passengers, the crews, and the cargo. They aren’t here, and the government hasn’t offered so much as a broken wing light to prove that these aircraft, people, and cargo were involved in the events of 9/11. They haven’t been seen or heard from since, (dead or alive) so for all intents and purposes, they DISAPPEARED. That’s hardly ‘evidence’ but a lack of it.

As for the buildings falling down that fast, NOBODY has said that they couldn’t fall down that fast. Ask any DEMOLITIONS expert! Of COURSE they could ‘fall down that fast’. It just couldn’t happen from an airplane strike. Explosives on the other hand, work remarkably well.

All of that said, the case is only weak because so much of the EVIDENCE has been DESTROYED, and it was destroyed immediately. Larry Silverstein, (the owner of the White Elephant that was the WTC) ADMITTED on national TV that he ‘gave the order’ to “PULL” building 7, which had NOT been hit by anything. How do you suppose they “pulled” it.  Well, just watch the pictures. They flippin’ BLEW IT UP! JUST THAT FAST! Because, explosives are like that. That’s what they’re for. Blowing shit up.

So when do you suppose he decided to ‘pull it’ (it WAS the same day BTW, when it too fell in its tracks in a classic and perfectly executed demolition). How long do you suppose it took to set up the ‘pull’. Just a few minutes to decide to pull it, and then maybe an hour or so to set up enough explosives THROUGHOUT the building to blow it up? I don’t think so. I’m not a building engineer, but I won’t believe that all skyscrapers are automatically equipped with explosives so that all a building owner has to do is ‘decide to pull’ it at any given moment, and down it comes. No.
No, we haven’t been given any evidence. So whatever you don’t believe, it’s not evidence, but the lack thereof.

Folktruther:
‘It’s not a question, Anarcissie, of picking up a corner of the rug to get at the dirt, what is required is to unravel the rug.  and no power structure willingly unravels its power system.

War Crimes?  Bombing homes, shooting prisoners, invading small countries, murder squads?  Obama is now pursing exactly the same policies of Bush, and is publically for increasing militarism.

Torture?  The US has always tortured….’ etc.

If the U.S. is totally in the grip of the ruling class and its malign ideology, then what’s the point of carrying on about 9/11 being an inside job?  They will never let you investigate it, much less bring anyone to trial.  Things will happen to people who persist.  On top of that, the case is weak, or we wouldn’t be given evidence like “the planes and crews and passengers disappeared” (they didn’t) or “the building couldn’t fall down that fast” (it could, or at least no one has shown that it couldn’t). 

There are certainly a lot of questions about 9/11 which have not been answered, and when they are, it may be possible to expose a conspiracy within the government to assist the perpetrators.  But at this time there is no smoking gun, and there is a lot of work to be done on other fronts where people are in more agreement about the facts.

It’s not a question, Anarcissie, of picking up a corner of the rug to get at the dirt, what is required is to unravel the rug.  and no power structure willingly unravels its power system.

War Crimes?  Bombing homes, shooting prisoners, invading small countries, murder squads?  Obama is now pursing exactly the same policies of Bush, and is publically for increasing militarism.

Torture?  The US has always tortured, directly in Vienam, indirectly until Bush, by training the military and intelligence of client-states.  While
Bush and Obama have both stated publically and repeatedly that ‘the US doesn’t torure.’  Obama’s major intelligence advisor John Brennan has maintained publically that torture is a ‘vital tool’ in the War on Terrorism.  And he is quite right.

But Obama pretended to stop it anyway, while going back to the rendition programs of pre-Bush times.
He did not abolish torture; he wants to conceal it.

Stealing public money?  Surely you jest.  Obama has been an eager supporter of the bailout swindle. Stealing taxpayer money is done in public now by all the powerful.  How can he publically proscecute it.

Private stealing?  Look how Madoff and his familiy were treated by the SEC, judges and prosecuters.  He is still in his penthouse giving way valuables to his family, with as much as a hundred billion dollars missing.

The American power system is so corrupt that there can’t be any laws enforced against the rich and powerful.  It is near the end of its life cycle and requires the population to push it out of the way.  But this can’t be done successfully until we agree on what is to replace it.  And we don’t have a clue.
But prosecute the rich and powerful in the present power system is a utopian fantasy.

Folktruther: ‘Law restraining the powerful is no longer possible in the US until the 9/11 questions are resolved. ...’

I don’t see why.  If there’s dirt under the rug, then it doesn’t matter which corner you pick up first.

In fact, if a highly dubious and controversial issue like what really occurred in and around 9/11 has to be resolved first, then there is never going to be any law restraining the rich and the powerful, because, being rich and powerful, it will be easy for them to parry and deflect moves against them.  This wouldn’t be the case if somebody had found a smoking gun, but they haven’t.  I recommend starting somewhere else, such as the overt war crimes which everyone agrees occurred.

Law restraining the powerful is no longer possible in the US until the 9/11 questions are resolved.  And they can’t be resolved by American power.  Richard Falk, the UN rappor to Israel stated in 9/11 and the American Empire:

  “But given the tainted legitimacy of a political system that either allowed 9/11 to happen, or conspired to make it happen, there is a dark, perplexing secret harbored the deepest recess of the governing processes. ...

The acute fear that the dark secrets will somehow be exposed also generates strong inhibiting pressures on the citizenry…”

Of course you can consider Falk, who was a distinguished professor of interntional law at Princton, as just another crazed conspir;acy theorist.

But should you consider the possibility that he is willing to consider the truth, that the American power system lives in fear that the truth about 9/11-anthrax may become widely believed among the American people, de-legitiamting the American power system, then it is easier to understand why Obama doesn’t want to investigate the Bushites.  The Gop crimes were covered up by their Dem partners.
And both are sanitized by the American media.

By Robert, January 23 at 5:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I was fully convinced Obama was pretty much perfect until two things occurred. 
First, his selection of Rick Warren to pray at the inauguration was clearly a slap in the fact to a minority he says he supports, but apparently feels he can take for granted…

Second, his hesitation and then opposition to any kind of investigation into the illegal activities of the Bush administration.

*~*~
Robert, with all due respect for the majority of your opinions, THIS is what Obama meant by the petty stuff.

First, there’s never been a reason for you (or anyone) to be convinced that Obama was pretty much ‘perfect’. He’s not,  and has never claimed to be. I think a reasonable consensus is that he’s the best we’ve had in a few decades, and certainly the best for the times that we are in now…less than what G.Anderson would say is “a gnat’s eyelash length”  from the abyss of total destruction, and for sure a dictatorship. As a collective, we have only barely survived that, and not all of us did.

So it is only in context with the time and the circumstances, that we might consider Obama to be pretty much ‘perfect’ and it really is all relative. In that view, he HAS been pretty much perfect so far.

However, in the view of something like his alleged ‘selection’ of Rick Warren, that’s something that gets regulated to the ‘we don’t have time for the silly stuff’ pile. At the end of the day, Rick Warren was insignificant, despite his own desperate efforts to make himself so. And you’re being distracted by the propaganda and the BS if you honestly think that Obama made such a ‘selection’ himself. If you actually wanted to be pissed off about this sort of ‘bait’, you should be pissed off at HBO for intentionally cutting the invocation that Rev Robinson (I think that’s his name) gave. He was a guy that actually WAS selected by Obama’s team, though apparently not until after Warren had bullied his big fat ass in.

Either way, cumulative ACTION always speaks louder than political rhetoric. Obama has been fully committed to the minority population of which you speak, and you just have to pay more attention.

Like this part about him being hesitant and then opposed to any investigation into the crimes of the Thugs. You don’t KNOW that there will not be an investigation of some form or fashion, because you’re unaware of the very things that must be undone first, before such an investigation can be successful. There is a whole bunch of legal groundwork that must be reversed, and there is still a portion of the slime left in the apparatus of the Justice Dept. bureaucracy.  Barack Obama didn’t get to this elected position by showing his full hand along the way, and I don’t believe he’s gonna do it now. And while I don’t think that such a PUBLIC THEATER type ‘investigation’ is going to come from him at this point, (because of everything else that’s going on) I’m pretty much convinced that there WILL BE an investigation going on in the background. That’s just my sense of how he seems to get things done. That’s pretty much how good Administrators operate.

Meantime, he’s laying the groundwork for everything that WILL at some point, assist in such an investigation. His decision on Gitmo, and his demand for compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, and a few other of his new orders all provide for additional tools that we’ve not had before now, to actually get at some of the information. (or whatever Cheney hasn’t fed to the shredders).

So, give it time, and don’t let the superficial bullshit (like Rick Warren) distract you.

Alleged or real abuses done by GWB and cronies, will never be pursued, for accountability is not the nature of the beast.  One can dream of a trial, with the end result like Saddam Hussein;s , wouldn’t it be nice to behold on prime time, especially on Fox not the News?.  Maybe a little water boarding on the side, since it is not really torture all done by a jury of their peers or maybe it should be jury of their surfs.

White collar crimes have always been regarded differently then pot smokers, maybe an elitist affair because it hits closer to home for the rule makers?  After all equality is only a perception, not a reality.

A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review

“When individuals are being tortured and everyone knows about it and no one seems able to do a thing to help,” Lawrence Weschler writes, “primordial mysteries at the root of human community come under assault as well.” Overthrowing oppressive regimes is not enough to resolve the crisis; the persecutors must also acknowledge what they have done. “True forgiveness is achieved in community…. It is history working itself out as grace, but it can only be accomplished in truth.”

“A Miracle, A Universe brings together two long nonfiction pieces, originally published in the New Yorker, which examine how citizens of Brazil and Uruguay have worked to “settle accounts” with their former torturers. Weschler uses historical background to supplement his powerful eyewitness reportage and interviews, bearing witness to those who seek to break through official denials of government atrocity. The efforts to build a democratic society in which people can have faith have rarely been portrayed with as much immediacy and insight as Weschler brings to these articles.”

From Library Journal
“Systematic political torture is a relatively recent phenomenon in world politics. Weschler, a New Yorker staff writer, chronicles an era of torture in Brazil and Uruguay. He bases his Brazilian account on over one million pages of archives kept by the military, which includes accounts by survivors. He also tells the story of the not-wholly successful efforts to bring Uruguayan officials to justice. Individual accounts of torture, however, are only a small part of the book; instead, Weschler recounts the story of whole societies as victims. Previously excerpted in a five-part series in The New Yorker , this is a compelling book that draws attention to a political truth that is too easily avoided. Highly recommended for public and university libraries.”

- Andrea Bonnicksen, Eastern Illinois Univ., Charleston

Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.—This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.”

Taking special note of the recounting of the story of “WHOLE SOCIETIES as victims” is exactly how and why I see us needing this same healing treatment. We’ve been every bit as victimized by the past 8 years of the Cheney Dictatorship as the members of the societies that Weschler studies and tells us about.

The Aspen Institute sponsored a similar project for the victims of Pinochet’s Chile. I’ll look for a link if anyone is interested.

It’s doable.

Folktruther:
‘Anaarcissie—I’m shocked-shocked! that you want to enforce the law against the powerful. ...’

I’m just pointing out that it could be done without any big deal or blue-ribbon schnauzer commission.

I want to do more profound things than enforce the law against the powerful; I’d like to subvert and sabotage the basis of their power.  But if our liberal friends want to clean house according to their lights, well, there’s the broom and the mop and the Pinesol.

Speaking of investigations, John Dean makes a good point in “Legal Jeopardy For American Torturers Here and Abroad? A Q & A Session With An Expert on the Issue, Philippe Sands:”

“. . . One would think that people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Gonzales, Yoo, Haynes and others, who claim to have done nothing wrong, would call for investigations to clear themselves if they really believed that to be the case. Only they, however, seem to believe in their innocence – the entire gutless and cowardly group of them, who have shamed themselves and the nation by committing crimes against humanity in the name of the United States.”

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/

The mask is off! President Obama has approved bombing inside Pakistan. This is now his war.

Beginning in February we must ask at the end of every month: Sir, how many of our troops are in Iraq?

Anaarcissie—I’m shocked-shocked! that you want to enforce the law against the powerful.  That is no longer the American way.  Why that would be like the SEC enforcing the law against Madoff when reliably informed he was running a Ponzi scheme, or putting he and his family in jail when he admitted it.  The lawlessness of the powerful came in with Bush, and is continuing with Obama.

That is why Obama appointed as Treasurer, and head of the IRS, a cheater on his taxes, to get us conditioned for business as usual, lawlessness as usual.  Possibly Obama will give the lawless the Medal of Freedom, like Bush gave Tenet.  After all, hasn’t that come to mean what Freedom is all about?

He has just gotton his feet wet with the blood of 17 people as the military blew up their homes in Pakistan.  Lawlessness abroad, lawlessness at home for the powerful, the American way.

THE 27,000 MUSLIMS DISAPPEARED BY THE US

ROBERT FISK

“There is just one little problem, though, and that’s the “missing” prisoners. Not the victimswho have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply disappeared into US custody abroad or – with American help – into the prisons of US allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-obama-has-to-pay-for-eight-years-of-bushs-delusions-1001092.html

Fisk, the same incensed honourable man who fearlessly reported the Sabra and Shatila genocide of Arial Sharon who, after the Israeli inquiry, was fired as Israeli Defense minister.

Would that there be such an inquiry again, in the U.S.

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH

Clive Stafford Smith: “US Holding 27,000 in Secret Overseas Prisons; Transporting Prisoners to Iraqi Jails to Avoid Media & Legal Scrutiny,” on Democracy Now.

Clive Stafford Smith, British born lawyer for over fifty detainees in Guantanamo Bay. He is the legal director of the UK charity Reprieve and has defended prisoners on death row for over twenty years. He is the author of Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/19/clive_stafford_smith

Obama doesn’t need a “blue-ribbon panel” unless he’s putting on a dog show.  In case you have forgotten, the United States has numerous laws forbidding the crimes imputed to the Bush Administration.  All that is necessary is the appointment of a Special Prosecutor with adequate resources and powers to investigate probable offenses and prosecute the perpetrators, a grand jury to indict them, and an honest judge in the mold of “Maximum John” Sirica to preside at the trials.

It is not a matter of restoring our national values, honor and pride; it’s a matter of improving our lot by getting rid of the criminals in our midst, and doing it in such a way as to stand as a warning to those tempted to similar crimes in the future.

Most of the support could come from Congress; Mr. O could even pretend to be annoyed by the investigations as, one by one, the more egregious perpetrators were hauled off to prison.  As long as they’re hauled.

Mere words fail me when I attempt to describe what I see as GWB’s damage to America’s reputation, military power and economic well being.  That’s not to mention how he’s circumvented our civil liberties and broken the covenant that once existed between the government and the governed.  Regrading public hearings on the matter, I think Mr. Robinson’s prescription is a good compromise between sweeping the shame and criminality “under the rug” verses what would look like a witch hunt.

Even a hack pseudo-progressive like Robinson is nervous about the massive fraud of Obama’s pretense to stop torture.  Obama said NOTHING about the non-CIA prisons run by the US and its client-states.  Or about the Rendition program, turning captives over to them to be tortured.  He proposes that captives abducted in various countries, and in the US, be treated according to the tenets of the US miliarty handbook.

As a number of truthers have pointed out, the US military handbook has been rewritten by the Bushites to PERMIT torture, primiarly by the fine print in the appendex in the back of the book.  the Geneva Conventions, which are the statutory law of the US, does not permit torture, but they were not mentioned by Obama.  Apparently they are still ‘quaint.’

Obama is a public relations con put in office to continue Bush’s Zionist, inperialist neoliberal policies. This apparently will continue to be done under the rhetorical guise of the War on Terrorism.  It didn’t occur to me that the Obiden regime could be WORSE than the Bushite regime, but indications are beginning to suggest it.

The American people do not understand, do not WANT to understand—it is UN-PATRIOTIC to understand- how massively the US power structure is deceiving the American people.  It is necessary to tell the American people what they do not want to know before there is any possiblity of change that benefits the country.

I like Eugene Robinson’s proposal. As much as many of us would like to see the Bush administration prosecuted, it’s still a tough political call. While the Bushites may get away, with Robinson’s proposal, we at least learn from our mistakes. Truth has a power leagues beyond vengeance.

The biggest and best first step in our “national healing” would be a trial for everyone involved in the post 9/11 conspiracies of the Bush adm. If these criminals are not dragged away in chains, then nothing we do will ever restore america. Worse, it will only invite and encourage future abuses of power, by anyone and everyone.

Among the unknown unknowns is the real concealed truth about the lies in the official government 9/11 story.  Where are the Media investigator?  Why does the Congress ignore the reams of information.

I wonder how the right wingnuts will take this article. They think George was a great President. I think he did the best that he could do based on the advice that he got from his cabal. I wish him well in his retirement. This country has a long way to go to repair its economy as well the other agendas that need to be undertaken.